As the spring approaches but the weather remains cold, it’s still likely just a bit early to be getting back to your warm-weather lawn care considerations. But this is a perfect time of year for planning any big changes to your garden or landscaping, and a lawn expert from Greenside can help.

In particular, this can be a great time of year for mapping your shade. Shade mapping gives you a clear picture of the sun exposure in your garden, allowing you to plan where certain plants and other elements will go with more accuracy. Here are some basics on shade mapping.

Shade Mapping Basics

Mapping the shade in your yard is a very simple exercise with two basic steps (you have to do this on a day where you’re home at various intervals, as you’ll see):

  • With graph paper, lay out the buildings and large trees on your property. You don’t have to be exact down to the inch here – just be as close as you can in terms of spacing and relative sizes.
  • Keeping your map handy, map the shade pattern in your yard at 9am, noon, and 3pm. This will give you three separate data points to track shade movement and arches.

Elements to Remember

A few basics to keep in mind here:

  • The sun moves clockwise, or sun-wise
  • The more objects in your yard, the more shade – but note where overlapping takes place
  • The denser the object, the denser the shade – your home gives off total density, for instance, but trees or shrubs will have less dense shade
  • Evergreens cast the same shade throughout the year, while deciduous plants (those that lose their leaves yearly) have a denser shadow when they have leaves and a lighter shadow when they don’t

Determining Sun Exposure

With the basic shade map now completed, you can determine what kind of sun exposure you have. The basic ranges are as follows:

  • Full sun: 6 or more hours
  • Part sun: 4-5 hours
  • Part shade: 2-3 hours
  • Full shade: Under an hour of sun

To learn about what your sun exposure means, or to learn about any of our other lawn care, yard clean up or weed control services, speak to the pros at Greenside today.